Author Guidelines
(Thank you for choosing Journal of Kathmandu Medical College (JKMC) for submitting your scientific work. These guidelines are meant to help authors to familiarise with the requirements of JKMC for submission of articles, format it follows and other information that may be helpful for preparing the manuscript. Hence we suggest authors to first go through the guidelines in order to make the preparation of your manuscript easier and to increase the chance of publication of the article in JKMC. Please note that our requirements are more or less based on the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to Biomedical Journals, more details of which is available from www.icmje.org)
Introduction:
JKMC is a multidisciplinary, peer reviewed, open access, quarterly journal which publishes a wide range of scientific works including original research paper, case reports, reviews, audits, editorials, book reviews and articles from medical students. It includes work from basic science, clinical science, dental, nursing and other related medical fields.
Being a journal from a rapidly growing medical institution, both clinically and academically, JKMC welcomes scientific works from different institutions, both national and international.
What does JKMC publish?
JKMC publishes high quality research papers under the following sections (for detailed description of each type, please go through the section “Guidelines for individual article types”)
- Full-length Original Research Articles and Short Communications across the entire spectrum of medical research including basic sciences, medical, surgical, dental and nursing fields as well.
- Case reports/series illustrating a point of general interest or discussing a different presentation/management or contributing new information in the field of medicine.
- Reviews on current topics.
- Audits which are of good quality and with significant implications, especially the ones which have compared the findings with similar and contrasting situations.
- Editorials
- Letter to the editor on matters arising from published material.
- Book reviews
- Medical Education
- Student JKMC
Please note that JKMC does not charge submission fees.
Before you submit your manuscript to us, please make sure of the following:
- Ethical clearance: Authors are required to sign the declaration file mentioning that an ethical clearance has been obtained from the respective ethics board/Institutional Review Board (IRB) / Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC). The researchers must have followed internationally accepted ethical standards such as the Declaration of Helsinki. Every case report must have a written informed consent from the patient/patient’s guardian (in case of minor), and care should be taken that the identity of the patient are not disclosed in any manner. However, we do NOT require the letter of ethical clearance or the consent to be attached during the manuscript submission. However, if need arises, we might ask for it and the author needs to present a copy of the ethical clearance and/ or consent to the journal.
- Authorship: An “author” is someone who has made significant intellectual contribution to the study. Not everyone who works for a research is necessarily an author of a manuscript. An author must take responsibility for at least one component of the work, should be able to identify who is responsible for each other component, and should ideally be confident in their co-authors’ ability and integrity. Regarding authorship, JKMC follows the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations which states that authorship credit should be based on:
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
(More details on authorship can be found in our Editorial policy)
All authors must abide to good publication practices and if found to be involved in any kind of misconduct, JKMC will hold the right to deal/penalize the article and all the authors, accordingly.
Any change in authorship later on should be corresponded in time to the editor and a signed letter from all the authors, along with a valid justification of the change is expected. Please refer to our declaration file for more information on the terms you have to abide by before submitting your manuscript.
- License to publish: Submission of manuscript to JKMC endows JKMC the right to publish it in print and online format. Authors are not allowed to submit it anywhere else unless it is rejected by JKMC or withdrawn formally by the authors. For withdrawal, authors are required to send a letter of withdrawal to JKMC with valid reasons and it should be approved by the Editorial Board of JKMC.
Manuscript Submission:
Manuscript should be addressed to the Chief Editor and be submitted via the submission portal at www.jkmc.com.np, after registering and signing in as an Author. JKMC will not entertain any submission by e-mail, post or otherwise. The following files should be attached at the time of submission:
1. Cover Letter (to be downloaded from our website: http://www.jkmc.com.np and filled by the chief author/corresponding author on behalf of all authors)
2. Declaration file (to be downloaded from our website: http://www.jkmc.com.np, filled and signed by ALL authors. Please download this file, print it, fill the required fields, get it signed by all authors, scan it and attach the scanned file.)
3. Manuscript (to be written in the format suggested subsequently)
4. Ethical approval letter for research articles (Consent form for case reports)
5. Additional files like images (figures/pictures), tables, graphs. (In the format suggested subsequently).
Instructions to authors regarding manuscript format:
Brief information about individual manuscript types:
[For detailed information, see the guidelines for individual article types.]
- Original article, short communication, and audit should have following sections: Title, Structured abstract (within 250 words) with keywords, Introduction (within 200 words), Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References (maximum 30).
- Case report should have following sections: Title, Unstructured abstract (within 100) with keywords, Introduction (within 100 words), Case report, Discussion, Conclusion, and References (maximum 10; 30 for Case report with review of literature).
- Review should have following sections: Title, Unstructured abstract (within 200 words) with keywords, Introduction (within 200 words), Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References (maximum 100). It may also have additional sections if needed by the topic, as in meta-analysis.
- Editorials should have following sections: Title, Main body, and References if necessary.
- Letter to editor should be written in concise, reasonable paragraph format.
- Book review should have the name and all pertinent information about the book, including the price (if possible). It must have name of the author(s)/editor(s), edition, publisher, year of publication, pages, and price along with the review. If required, you may add Reference section to it.
- Student JKMC will be an optional section. It will have articles relating to medical students’ experiences, career prospects, and related topics. It will be board reviewed rather than peer-reviewed.
Manuscript File:
- File format: Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx). We do not accept .pdf files or scanned images of the manuscript.
- Language and grammar: British (UK) English.
- Spacing: single. Margins: moderate
- Contents should be concise, fitting into word limit, but detailed enough to make the study clear to the readers.
Images:
- Colour: All images should be in colour, except for images which are originally in greyscale e.g. electron microscopy slides.
- Caption and Numbering: All images must be numbered as: Figure “number (in Arabic numerals)” with a title describing the image, placed below the image. The caption should read like “Figure 1: Figure title”.
The captions should be placed where the image is meant to be in the manuscript with one line spacing above and below the caption.
Tables:
- Title and Numbering: Title of table should be placed above the table. The title should read like "Table 1: Table title".
- Table may be placed within the text of manuscript or attached as a separate file. In the latter case, the title of the table should be placed where the table is meant to be placed with a line spacing above and below the title.
Graphs/Charts:
- Caption and Numbering: same as Images.
- If possible, please send us the graphs/charts as part of Microsoft Worksheet along with the data used to generate the graph/chart.
Units of measurements should be in SI units (International system of units) as far as possible.
Abbreviations (Acronyms): Abbreviations should be avoided in abstract. In the main text of the article, abbreviations should be written in parenthesis along with full form for the first time. Subsequently abbreviation alone may be used. Standard English abbreviation can be used without its full form. For example: "e.g." for "example"
When starting a sentence with a number, please spell the number. For e.g. “Seventy one percent of subjects had...”
Single digit numbers should be spelled out. For e.g. “..was found in two percent..”.
When using drug names, generic names should be used. Trade names are not allowed.
Please do not write in contractions. For e.g. write “do not” instead of “don’t”.
Referencing: JKMC follows modified Vancouver system as devised in the NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers for referencing, which is available as a book: “Citing Medicine, 2nd edition”. The book can be downloaded free of cost at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/
(A brief, quick illustration of NLM style referencing is available in our guidelines for individual article types).
- A website link (URL) needs to be provided to all references for PubMed, Full Text, and DOI (all or as much as available).
- Please note that JKMC follows a few adaptations of the Vancouver system like:
- Superscripts should be used for citation numbers rather than brackets in text.
- Citation superscript numbers should be placed after commas, colons, semi-colons, and full stops.
JKMC follows ICMJE, WAME, CSE, COPE's guidelines as standard ones. For details please visit the respective sites.
Additional information:
- If authors of a published article become aware of a significant error in it, a notification letter should be sent as soon as possible to the editor. If the error is judged significant enough to warrant a published correction, the correction will be made as an “erratum” if the fault is JKMC’s and as “correction” if the fault is the author’s.
- We will correspond with the corresponding author via the email address provided, initially after the manuscript has passed through the initial Screening Process. We expect response to our mail as soon as possible i.e. within three days of receiving the mail. Further correspondences will be after completion of peer review. We do not entertain personal calls to any member of the editorial board regarding your manuscript. Kindly mail to us in our official email address if you have any queries. Personal calls for publication, undue influence, if identified will drastically lower the chances of acceptance.
- Appeal: The author has the right to appeal for re-consideration of decision on rejection and comments regarding his /her manuscript provided he/she has valid reasons for it, within a week of receiving information about the decision. The final decision, however, rests on the editorial board.
- Any irregularities, misinformation, or manipulation of the data tending to skew the conclusion towards the side that does not represent the actual finding, if found, can result in the manuscript to be rejected or retracted (if already published).
Any case of breach of publication ethics will be dealt with in accordance with accepted standard guidelines such as those of COPE, ICMJE, WAME, CSE. JKMC may proceed with legal actions if needed in appropriate cases. JKMC might black-list the author(s) of the manuscript and also circulate the news and recommendation in public media and/or other journals.
If you have any queries, please contact us via email at editor@jkmc.com.np or visit our website https://www.jkmc.com.np. We are always ready to help.
